Pharmaceutical and Medical Packaging News Magazine
PMPN Article Index

Originally Published March 1998

OUR VIEW

Finding Packaging Personnel

To prepare your company for the challenges of new technologies and globally expanding markets, hire packaging graduates and encourage young people to consider an education in packaging.

The next time you start searching for recent packaging graduates, you may be surprised to find them among the most popular of any on campus — if they're still there by the time you arrive.

In recent years, packaging graduates have started jobs at salaries near the top of any technical discipline and have had to waste little time between graduation and starting jobs.

Industry demand for qualified packaging personnel fresh from college continues to rise. Reasons for such demand include the following:

• Because of the pressure environmental groups have put on the top management of consumer goods companies, packaging technology is now seen as an effective and visible means to environmental responsibility as well as to healthy bottom-line economics.

• News of the accomplishments of good packaging personnel spreads from one company to another, especially among mid-sized companies where packaging previously was an afterthought.

• Active co-op and intern programs operated by the universities offering packaging curricula have given undergraduates and potential employers a great opportunity to try out one another with little risk.

The demand has increased fairly evenly over the years, but now may be approaching critical mass where an explosion could occur. Both new technologies and global markets are expanding at unprecedented rates. As packaging material, machine, and line-operation technologies become more sophisticated, the need for specialists familiar with them grows.

New technologies often have an immediate impact on production economics, of course, but, particularly in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, some technologies help to refine procedures as well. New technologies also seem to encourage agencies such as FDA to stiffen requirements. This also increases the need for devoted packaging staff.

But the real driver of demand for college-educated packaging personnel is the move to globalization. By globalization, I don't mean the old paradigm of transnational shipments or calling your company ABC International because you have a subsidiary in Paris. Globalization refers to the massive cultural, economic, and political changes brought about by advances in transportation and communication.

Future packaging professionals will understand this new global outlook and the need to create packages that reflect this cultural diversity. They will understand the myriad regulations, different for each nation, that can affect their ability to deliver compliant product to market safely and economically.

They will be just as concerned with coordination and quality control as with the intricacies of any one packaging technology or market. They will be staff managers, not line operators.

It's up to each of us to help prepare our companies' packaging capabilities for these challenges. Within our own realms of responsibility, we can support packaging education at the college level. The best way to do so is to encourage young people to consider an education and a career in packaging.

For more information, contact PEF at 703/318-8975, fax 703/814-4961,  http://www.packinfo-world.org/wpo/us/pef/ or E-mail pef@pkgmatters.com.

William C. Pflaum is executive director of the Packaging Education Forum (PEF; Herndon, VA).